Category Archives: Humanities

A Labor Of Love

I admit it. The work of art below is based on code I’ve taken from Mandarin Design. The good thing is, Meg encourages people; the purpose of her blogx is to help the technically challenged learn tips and tricks to make interesting visuals. I ran out of steam before I got to the end of creating this quilt (it had 70 squares). If you find yourself left off, please don’t take it personally. In some cases I needed to scour for images and resize them, and since I’ve been at it for eight hours and haven’t eaten, I thought it wise to call it a day. Update: I continued working on this after dinner. The quilt is now complete with 60 squares.

A Mindful Life
Blogger Quilt

Arts & Letters Daily Dr. Grohol Mandarin Design EasyBakeOven Shirl Arts Journal Axe Handles Natalie Nathaniel Whiskey River Keri Blogsisters Cicada Via Negativa Dating God Time Goes By Cup of Chica Ectophensis This Is My Body... Empty Is Form Beginner's Mind Soulful Blogger Facilitating Paradox The Skeptical Mystic Fatshadow The Obvious Field Notes The HeartMath Report Fragments From Floyd The Coffee Sutras Gassho Sacred Ordinary Gay Spirituality & Culture. Ruby's Bar & Grill Heart at Work Hoarded Ordinaries Nomen Est Numen Kat's Paws Parking Lot Raven Banner Luminous Emptiness Paula's House of Toast Nutzso Mystic Cowboy IONS blog Real Live Preacher Integral Awakening Roman Lily Markham's Behavioral Health John's Dharma Path Luminous Heart Journal of a Writing Man Psychnotes Older and Growing Kalilily Time Orange Philosophy San Francisco Bay Area Bloggers Awakening and Opening Dooce Lactose Incompetent 

Library Geek

I want a Librarian Action Figure! Really, I do. There are some quotes on the page that I like a lot:

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

–Jorge Luis Borges

In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us how to swim.

–Linton Weeks

I’d also enjoy reading Ms. Pearl’s book, Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason.

I’m feeling wistful for Austin and its variety of toy stores, such as Toy Joy and throughout Book People. Here, for example, is another reason Austin is weird:
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Take A Poem Walk

The author of WoodMoor Village Zendo wrote:

I love the Fall. This is definitely my favorite season. I love the feeling of gathering the threads so that we can abide mindfully and comfortably at home, nestled with family during the Winter. The feeling of Harvest, of ripeness, of a life worthy of rest suffuses me.

He then described a mindful walk he took with his son, during which they identified words they might use to compose a poem. It strikes me as a lovely way to spend some time.

Web Best Practices

Ronni, the author of Time Goes By, recently posted guidelines — or to use her term, Web best practices — that would enhance the blog reading experience. In the post she covers the following issues:

  • text styling
  • background color
  • posting dates
  • blogrolls
  • link rot
  • read more
  • link blogs
  • fair use and source your quotes

I agree with her on some of points but not all; I left a comment iterating my thoughts. For example, she observed it is difficult to read text that is italicized. I’ve used this style to denote material that I’m quoting; you shall see in future posts that such text will be posted with wider margins in a box with white background. On the other hand, I don’t mind blogs that have 100, 200, or 300 links; the blog author may not read them all, but as I see it, these links are offered like candy in a jar. That’s, in essence, what my blogroll is for, although I do try to read all of those blogs at least once a week. I recently subscribed to Bloglines so I can see which ones have been updated and not spend time chasing blogs that rarely have new content. To read her suggestions, please do read the post.

Accepting One’s Physicality

Siona has such a way with words:

I’m inordinately affected by the weather. It took me a long time to admit this; for years I refused to acknowledge that my moods might be linked to something as improbable and distant as the sky. I was a rational person, I thought; my emotions were linked to that which mattered, and not some butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon. Now I’m less embarrassed by my sensitivity. I’m an animal. I reside in a body that resides in the world that itself reclines under a pulsing membrane of pressure and weather and rain. How can my own cells ignore the atmosphere around me? How can my bones disregard the heaviness of the air? How can I not fail to respond to the sun on a clear day? It’s more embarrassing to me now to think that I once believed I should be capable of ignoring all this. I’m attuned to the world. We all are. And I no longer mind.

Eating In Silence

When we eat, far too often it is with a carelessness borne of necessity. There is information to convey to our fellow diners, business to be attended to, or a slipstream of urgent thoughts in our heads. But, in all the chatter, it is easy to overlook the physical and spiritual nourishment that food provides, and the close relationship we, as humans, share with the earth. Silent, meditative meals allow you to enjoy the pleasure of food mindfully and to strongly experience the joys of being with friends and family in a quiet, reflective way. When you eat without speaking, it’s an opportunity to focus on the origins, sight, scent, and flavor of each food, as well as the effect on your body.

Read more about mindful eating at DailyOM.

Speaking Of Unspeakable Things

I had a wonderful encounter with Tish yesterday. Five hours of glorious conversation! It did my mind and heart good. I can write more about this, but the hour is late. I’m sure tidbits of what we processed will inspire a number of future posts.

We discussed, among many topics, the issue of cultural responses to fat and to bodies that are different from the “norm.” I remembered an article I read in the New York Times last year that I’d blogged about in my retired original blog (The Hestia Chronicles). I dug it out of the archives and am re-posting the excerpt. The Times requires registration; since this is an old article, you’ll have to pay if you want to read the entire piece. It’s worth the cost. It’s the most provocative essay I have read on the topic. Ever.

He insists he doesn’t want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.

Whenever I try to wrap my head around his tight string of syllogisms, my brain gets so fried it’s . . . almost fun. Mercy! It’s like ”Alice in Wonderland.”

It is a chilly Monday in late March, just less than a year ago. I am at Princeton University. My host is Prof. Peter Singer, often called — and not just by his book publicist — the most influential philosopher of our time. He is the man who wants me dead. No, that’s not at all fair. He wants to legalize the killing of certain babies who might come to be like me if allowed to live. He also says he believes that it should be lawful under some circumstances to kill, at any age, individuals with cognitive impairments so severe that he doesn’t consider them ”persons.” What does it take to be a person? Awareness of your own existence in time. The capacity to harbor preferences as to the future, including the preference for continuing to live.

At this stage of my life, he says, I am a person. However, as an infant, I wasn’t. I, like all humans, was born without self-awareness. And eventually, assuming my brain finally gets so fried that I fall into that wonderland where self and other and present and past and future blur into one boundless, formless all or nothing, then I’ll lose my personhood and therefore my right to life. Then, he says, my family and doctors might put me out of my misery, or out of my bliss or oblivion, and no one count it murder.
–from Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson; New York Times Magazine, 2/16/03.

Writing From The Heart

I’m seeking to gather with other writers for a different kind of writing group. Twice a month on Saturday we’ll meet for two hours (such as 10-noon) and write using prompts and journal format (i.e., no keyboarding on a laptop). Each writer will share the result for that exercise; usually there is enough time for two exercises and reading. The ground rule of the group is NO critiquing. The intention is to make a date with oneself to write, to meet up with kindred souls, to play with one’s muse, and have fun with the craft. Meeting location to be determined; probably in a public space, such as a meeting room at the Santa Clara City Library. No attendance commitment required, and the group will be open to new participants from any location.

Right now I’m looking for responses and will choose a start date once I have some interested folks. Approximate start date is mid-October. I’ve posted this on Cragislist as well. Please email if you’re interested. Just click on the “send feedback” link in the About column (sidebar).

Elaboration

When I make personal disclosures on this blog, I strive for more autobiographical vignettes attached to a broader thought or message, rather than writing as though in a diary. I have another blog for that kind of writing.

That said, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I manage to live with (around, despite) ongoing clinical depression. Years and years of talk therapy helped create insight as to part of its origins; it mostly taught me to be aware of symptoms and to be gentle in my self-assessment (one aspect of depression is a tendency toward rippingly negative thinking about oneself). Talk therapy is also what made me the counselor I am, possibly more so than the graduate courses.

On the other hand, I also take medication, and have for six years; it has helped immensely, and so I believe the depression has its roots in the physical as well as cultural/social. In other words, it’s not all my parents’ fault — it’s their genes’ fault! (Smile, please, that was an attempt at humor.) Medication therapy has its place.

I expected this transition to challenge my equanimity. What I wasn’t certain about was the degree to which I’d experience the undertow. Since my credentials are invisible according to the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, and I’d have to undergo training all over again — which I am simply not going to go through after five years of education and clinical training, an exam, and $60,000 — I’m at a loss. I had a private practice in Austin, but here I do not have the connections yet to establish one — and it would have to be as a “life coach” or other euphemism, without the cachet and seal of approval that official recognition (licensure) provides. Jobs I’ve seen require licensure, even for positions such as utilization management. I’ve kvetched about this here before.

The well part of me knows that it’s hard to reestablish onself, that it takes time, but it can be done. I simply need to put myself out into the world, tell people my vision, explore, connect, and trust that the right situation will arise.

However.

That’s the well part of me, the aspect of myself that shines when my life is mostly trundling along its course in other ways. Yet here I am trying to recreate a social network, a sense of place and home, a spiritual community. The loss of these things, along with the loss of professional qualifications (or at least my sense of them), along with the latent depression, are converging. I’m struggling to establish a routine, a vision, goals. I’m struggling with depression — or some of the symptoms. Significantly.

I know I will be all right. I know what is needed to take care of this. I just wanted to write about it (part of the process of taking care), to let my blog community know that I am grappling with this nemesis again. I am so grateful; my life is a gift. I feel vexed with myself that this crud covers my spirit, that I can cognitively understand I am blessed but still feel lost, listless, hopeless, sad. But there it is. I need some good vibes, folks, some prayers or encouragement or a job in my field (which includes counseling, coaching, teaching, academic advising, writing, librarianship, non-profit program management, and information management).

I am going to take tomorrow off. I shall go into San Francisco to have coffee and lunch with Tish. I’m heartened by this, as I think we have much in common. And just for fun, I’m posting in the extended entry the “flower picture of my ideal job” (from exercises I’ve done in What Color Is Your Parachute). In case you happen to have a job to offer (or know of one) that fits, or mostly fits, the description. Ideas, names of people to contact for information interviews, guidance on finding cameraderie in the job search are also welcome.
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